


Are You Real Too?

by indifferentyoongi



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Bickering, Blood, Camping, Coming Out, Fishing, Kissing, M/M, Semi-public hand jobs, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Summer Vacation, This is very soft folks please enjoy, Worms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indifferentyoongi/pseuds/indifferentyoongi
Summary: Jisung's visited this campsite every year since he was five. The uncomplicated childhood fun was long since over now that he was nearing his senior year of college, but his parents dragged him along each summer even still.Enter Lee Minho, who holds a fishing rod but doesn't know how to fish, who plays in the pool but doesn't know how to swim.Enter Han Jisung's annoyance that he can't seem to stop running into Minho's unfounded confidence in every part of this campground he no longer loves.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 30
Kudos: 508
Collections: MINSUNG BINGO: Round One





	Are You Real Too?

**Author's Note:**

> This work was completed as part of [minsung bingo](http://www.twitter.com/minsungbingo) and fills these squares: summer vacation, oblivious idiots, banter as flirting, convenience stores, pets/animals, holding hands, massages, and androids/artificial intelligence 
> 
> Thank you to the mods for providing such inspiration :") 
> 
> Dear reader, please know that I've projected my own experiences camping in the US onto this story. I didn't know how much I needed to write about being OUTSIDE in familiar places I now dearly miss during this quarantine until I started writing this au. I hope you'll forgive me and that you will enjoy. 
> 
> Happy reading~~~

Jisung wondered, as he heaved his duffle bag out of the back of his dad’s truck, if in the occasion he ever had children, would he be better at adapting to changing tradition than his own parents. 

"I brought your favorite pillow,” his mom told him with incongruent happiness to the stained, holey fabric now shoved into his hands. 

Jisung mumbled a thank you, grabbed all that he could with the arm space he had, and started one of many trips to unpack his family’s camping gear. 

There was a time—entire years—where the smell of the lake coming into this town; the feeling of the sand under his feet; the overpriced, shitty food; and the promise of sleeping on rocks and twigs were anticipated for months. Their only annual vacation from the year that he turned five years old, Jisung grew up associating this campground with summertime, with laughter, with a bubble more insulating than childhood itself, where nothing much could matter other than avoiding sunburn and dehydration and refusing to acknowledge just how few days were left in the week until they all had to return home. 

Watching his parents flirt as if the campground turned back twenty years of their relationship, Jisung assumed this was still the case for them. Adults, he now knew, didn’t get months of summer vacation. This week was the only one out of the entire year where his mother willingly parted with her laptop, where his father smiled more than he scowled. 

At some point along the way—probably at the same point along the way when he first started to pick petty fights with anyone and everyone, for no more tangible reason than an itch of irritation that accompanied the stubble he had newly growing on his face—coming to the lake became a hassle rather than a haven. Too many people. Too much noise. Even that which should have been serene and stress relieving, like fishing, was teeming with loud children.

That little kid screeching with delight as a fish flapped its fins on the end of a line could have very well been him the first few summers they came, but at some point—just a little bit later of a point, perhaps—Jisung, even in his free time, just wanted to be alone. 

His parents knew him well enough to see for half a decade that he was only going through the motions while he was here, but they never asked him if he didn’t want to come. And Jisung never asked them to cancel the campsite reservation, even though he was just one academic year away from graduating from college now. 

So he dutifully set up the same old tent, laughed at his father’s tired old jokes, and slept on the raggedy old pillow.

He counted days rather than sheep.

_ 1 day down. 6 more left to endure. _

*

"It's okay if you want to eat alone,” Jisung’s mom said as she poked her head into his tent the following morning. He was sitting atop his sleeping bag, legs crossed, phone in hand and a plate of breakfast that none of them usually ate on non-vacationing weekdays balancing on one knee. “But you could use a change of scenery, maybe? I bet the only people down at the pier right now are old guys who think talking too loud will scare away the fish. You’re probably safe.” 

She was good at this, he had to admit: nudging him out of his comfort zone without pushing him off of a cliff. 

Jisung smiled, nodded, grateful for the permission to be by himself. 

With the exception of one elementary-aged kid digging in a nearby sandpit along the tree line, his mom was mostly right about the state of the pier. Once Jisung arrived with his breakfast wrapped neatly in a napkin, headphones slung around his neck, obligatory swimming trunks reaching down to his knees, the sun wasn’t quite yet the hottest it would be all day, and while there were almost a dozen people watching bobbers stubbornly sway in the water, no one was paying him any mind at all. 

This particular pier was his favorite, not just for its current state of bliss. Of the main five docking areas surrounding the lake for which this campground centered, the one farthest from their usual campsite had the best shade and the fewest number of rusted nails. The water still smelled like garbage, and worm guts still stuck in between the slats, but if there was a walk he’d frequented most often in the past fifteen years, it was the one between his tent and this lot. 

Most of the men taking the morning fishing shift were setup near the tree line, so Jisung walked his way down the length of the pier to dangle his feet over the very end. 

Well-prepared for the spotty cell service by this point, he had plenty of drama episodes downloaded to his phone, but when he realized the sky was too bright to see his screen as well as he had been able to in the tent, he put on a familiar playlist instead and watched the water before him. 

Within the line of buoys separating casual recreation from large boating were kayaks and paddle boats slowly drifting by. He knew how much it cost to rent those things; nonetheless, there was always a steady supply of siblings competing to see who could row or pedal the fastest. Farther out, he could see the shadows of boats his parents were never willing to invest in, even though they could have kept one docked at the lake all-year round. 

He didn’t mind, really. If he had to come back year after year, worrying about only a tent and a camping stove was ideal. He was grateful for the simplicity of their setup.

Jisung was also grateful his phone was connected to his headphones, then connected to his ears, because when the sound of a loud swear startled him out of his thoughts, he jumped with an instinctive turn toward the sound. Without tension pulling on the headphone cord, he wouldn’t have realized that his phone had slid off of his thigh and was now dangerously close to slipping into the water. Racing heart doubled, Jisung scooped up what contained basically his entire life and searched for the offender. 

The rest of the pier’s population was turned, too, with the parents of the child in the sand looking the most affronted. A person standing towards the middle, fishing rod held between his feet and hook between his fingers, laughed away the awkward moment with an apologetic hand waved to them all. Though Jisung had not seen the swear come from that mouth, he knew this guy to be the one. He wore his own pair of swimming trunks and tshirt; his hair was parted down the middle and would have flopped into his eyes if not for the lens-less circle glasses balancing on his nose. His face was more suitable for a fansite pic than a campground. 

And he didn’t look nearly as embarrassed as he should have. 

Jisung rolled his eyes and set about finishing his breakfast. He had every intention of laying back with his face tipped up to the warming sun once he was done, but when the same murmuring voice distracted him from the lyrics of  _ two _ of his favorite songs back-to-back, he pocketed his now-empty napkin and got up to leave.

For some unfortunate reason, he made direct eye contact with the noisiest neighbor as he did so.

Another smile—apologetic, sure, but more amused than seemed appropriate, given the disturbance and the circumstance: while there was a worm on the hook he held, only the very end of the worm’s body was threaded onto the sharp metal. The rest of its body dangled from the hook, leaving its end exposed. 

Jisung entertained the idea of laughing outright in the guy’s face, was ready to do the sensible thing in just ignoring him altogether, but when his grin turned to a grimace and Jisung himself was wincing as the pier heard yet another expletive, he acted against his better judgment. 

“Hi,” the disaster of a non-fisherman greeted as Jisung approached.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“I know what I’m doing, yeah, but I don’t think that what I’m doing is what I should know, no.”

Jisung stared, mouth hung open in stunned confusion. “What?”

“Do you know how to do this?” 

He passed the hook over as if Jisung wasn’t a stranger; Jisung took it as if he wasn’t annoyed. 

“You shouldn’t come out here alone if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re hurting yourself, and you’re disturbing everyone else. Watch a YouTube video or something…”

“Why would I need to do that if a rando is going to show up to teach me how?”

Jisung kept his eyes on his fingers carefully threading the worm onto the hook. “You couldn’t have known I would come. Did you think offending everyone within a fifty yard radius was going to attract a savior?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Just barely,” Jisung responded as he swung the baited hook back towards the owner, who side-stepped out of the way so worm guts didn’t get on his pants (even if there was blood already dripping onto his shoes). “Good luck.”

“Wait—how did you do that—“

“Look it up,” Jisung called behind him, and he left.

*

This campground wasn’t small. In all these years, Jisung hadn’t managed to walk down every road or visit every corner. Though there were four pools—meant to be divided by age group, but with no enforcement of such a system, each could only be categorized as less crowded, crowded, more crowded, and most crowded—Jisung, of course, had his favorite, and he stuck to it. 

Like he did tonight. After dinner, he escaped the worried eyes of his parents who seemed to be more aware of his every movement than in summers previous by downloading a movie to his phone and walking over to his favored pool with its ideal layout: the chairs were in a separate area from the water, across a grassy expanse, so he never got wet from errant splashing.

In contrast to the pier, where noise contradicted the nature of fishing itself, at the pool, Jisung didn’t mind the white noise of  _ fun _ in the background. He hadn’t wanted to partake in years, not when the thought of sitting the rest of the day in wet trunks was infinitely less appealing than wading in warm water, but the atmosphere was fine enough. 

One he could count on.

Never usually any surprises. 

And yet.

Despite not recalling a single time he’d ever seen the same person twice, in two different parts of the campground, on the same day, the voice he heard half-yelling “I’ll be right back!” toward the pool was, undoubtedly, worm guy. 

He wore the same trunks from the morning, with his t-shirt laid across the back of the chair where he now stood, two rows in front of where Jisung laid. Even if the guy turned to see Jisung behind him, which he didn’t, since he quickly checked his phone and ran back to jump into the water once more, Jisung didn’t even know whether he’d recognize him or not. 

Even without the glasses and with his hair wet and pushed back from his face, Jisung surely recognized  _ him _ . Such an obnoxious face was not easy to forget.

The guy was more appropriately happy in the pool than he had been causing a public disturbance at the pier, although he appeared to be no better swimmer than he was a fisherman. He stayed in the shallower end, diving down for pool toys whoever he was with threw for him. Jisung couldn’t see but so well, but he didn’t suspect his feet ever left the bottom of the pool while they played.

Somewhere in between his movie ending and thinking about his dad making the s’mores he was promised once the sun went down, Jisung must have zoned out. Let his guard down. Stared long enough for unintentional eye contact to betray him once more. 

That was the only explanation for there to be yelling from the pool loud enough for Jisung to hear, “hey, it’s worm guy!” with a finger pointed directly at him.

The accusatory point became a ‘come here’ gesture, and if only to argue, Jisung made his way over to stand indignantly on the side of the pool.

“You can’t call me that.”

“Why?” 

“That’s what I was calling you.”

“But you helped me with the worm—you are  _ the. _ worm. _ guy _ .”

“No, you’re the one who couldn’t figure out how to bait the hook.”

Still no embarrassment. He smiled.

“I think our brains are connected. We’re going to the same places and now we’re using the same phrases. Where are you from? Maybe we were separated at birth and we’re actually long lost twins.”

“I’m not telling you—“

“I’m Lee Minho.”

When the wet hand he extended out of the water went unshaken, Minho kept talking.

“You can call me worm guy if you prefer, but you’ll have to pay me for every use, I own the copyright now.”

Jisung had to leap out of the way of nearby kids—the only inhabitants of such a shallow end—cannon-balling into the water before he could respond. 

“I don’t think we’re related, Lee Minho-ssi, I’m not nearly as strange as you are.”

“You come to a pool and refuse to get wet. You go to a pier and don’t want to fish. You’re on vacation but you look like you’re doing your taxes. How am I the strange one, exactly?”

He held out his hand, just to prove Minho wrong. 

“I’m Han Jisung.”

“Han Worm Guy, nice to meet you,” Minho replied just before flicking water from his fingers onto Jisung’s clothes instead of shaking his hand.

Jisung gathered all of his strength not to show a reaction on his face to Minho’s tiny laugh. 

He amused himself easily, clearly. 

“What if I was allergic to water?”

“You’d be a masochist.”

“I’m a masochist for standing here talking to you. I’m going to go...”

It was getting dark anyway, as if he needed an excuse other than escaping this unfortunate conversation. 

“I’ll see you next time!” Minho yelled over to the chair area while Jisung gathered his phone and his flip flops. 

“There won’t be a next time!” he yelled back.

And maybe he was a masochist, because in that moment, Jisung accidentally jinxed them both. 

*

Now that there were only three days left, Jisung was afraid to even leave their campsite. Yesterday, he’d gone with his parents to play mini golf at the small course near the club house, at the front of the property. Who was playing the course just one hole in front of them, but one Lee Minho and his parents. 

Minho pointed again, made it clear that they knew each other, and before Jisung could say a word, both parties were playing all together, and his traitor of a mother was laughing at every single thing that came out of the Lee family’s mouths. 

So it didn’t really matter if he left the lot or not when Minho and his parents were invited over for food, games, and dessert tonight.

“Jisungie, can you help me to prep the meat?” his father asked a couple of hours before the guests were set to arrive.

Tasks were his dad’s way of initiating conversation; when Jisung was halfway through placing the beef in the marinade, he wasn’t surprised to hear his dad speak again.

“Be nice tonight, okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be nice? Did you raise me to be impolite?”

“No,” he admitted. “You just seemed tense yesterday.”

Jisung paused his work and looked over at his dad, who was staring only at the grill.

“If you knew that, why’d you invite them over?”

“It’s good for you, you know…When you were little, you’d cry at the end of every vacation because you’d have to leave the new friends you’d made.”

“Yeah, it’s not exactly the same anymore.” 

He didn’t say age, but he figured his dad knew he meant that. He didn’t try to articulate everything else that had changed: the feeling in his stomach like he’d missed a step walking down a staircase whenever he was around people he didn’t know very well. A feeling like drowning, like suffocating, but irrationally, because he knows how to swim and how to breathe and how to talk and how to  _ be _ , but the panic sits in every part of him. A weight unavoidable. Stupidly, it’s comforting.

And maybe that’s why Lee Minho was so annoying. The comfort of Jisung’s anxiety was stripped. Instead of running he just wanted to argue, to be right, to fight. Was contempt any more productive of an emotion than avoidant panic? His therapist would probably say they were related rather than dichotomous. Anxiety is paralyzing and anger is productive. 

“This place,” his dad continued, with a fond look around their campsite, “is perfect for ignoring what  _ is _ and living what  _ could be _ or had been. Just think about it, son.”

He gave Jisung a pat on the shoulder before leaving him alone to finish the marinating. 

If his mom was good at nudging him without pushing him over the cliff, his dad was good at watering him, placing him near enough to the sun so he could bloom.

Jisung tried his best not to wither once the Lee family arrived.

They brought side dishes and a cooler full of soju and Minho brought his smile.

Jisung tried to remember he knew how to breathe.

*

“I came out of the camper and he was just sitting there, rubbing two sticks together sadly.”

Mr. Lee put his cup down on the makeshift end table of a stump to mime the motion with his hands. 

“You should have taught me basic survival skills by now, how was I supposed to know what to do?!”

Ah. So this was what Lee Minho looked like when he was embarrassed. Illuminated by the crackling fire, full from dinner and flushed from soju, he looked defensive. Not playful, but protective.

Jisung wanted to watch him burn.

“Mr. Lee, did Minho hyung—“ He saw Minho mouth a questioning  _ hyung? _ across the fire, but he ignored it. “—tell you that we first met because he was baiting the flesh of his own finger out on the pier?”

Minho’s dad choked on his drink and then turned to his son.

“You said you two were fishing together?”

“Oh, no,” Jisung answered for him. “I was eating breakfast and he was bleeding.”

“Son, you can’t just  _ lie _ about things that make you look bad.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Minho retorted, “I can, and I will. I saved Jisung from a shark attack. actually. He would have been drowned if it wasn’t for me.”

“Yeah,” Jisung agreed, sitting up a little straighter in his fold out chair. “He gave me mouth-to-mouth—“

“Okay! You’re right, Mrs. Han, we should go get more marshmallows!”

Minho, ignoring all confusion from the parents on either side of him who hadn’t said a word about marshmallows, got up to grab Jisung by the wrist.

“What?”

“Come  _ on _ .”

He didn’t let go until Jisung stood properly.

He didn’t stop talking until the campsite was long behind them.

“What are you always watching?” Minho asked, probably after realizing that Jisung wasn’t going to contribute to his monologuing over parents being banned from embarrassing their kids in front of other people. 

“I’m not watching you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Jisung’s eyes could not be trusted. He peeked over to his right, and Minho teased him with raised eyebrows.

“No, actually, that wasn’t what I was asking, but doth the lady protest too much?”

Jisung stuck out his foot to trip Minho, but he hopped over the obstacle easily, laughing into the quiet of the street. No defense appeared to work on him now. When they were alone, he was too at ease.

“I meant on your phone. Even today, you had headphones on when we got here.”

Jisung shrugged. 

“Depends. Movie, drama, podcast, music, whatever can distract me from whatever I don’t want to deal with.”

He expected Minho to take advantage of such an opportunity to pry, but he didn’t.

“What drama are you watching right now?”

“It’s called ‘Are You Human Too?’”

“Seo Kangjoon is in that, right? That’s all I really know about it.”

“Dreamy leading man is the only thing on your mind?”

_ That _ was the most effective strategy yet. It was dark, but the paved roads connecting each street of the campground were well lit, and Minho was unmistakably blushing.

Sparing him, Jisung described the plot: “A mother’s son is taken away from her, so she builds an AI version of him to keep her company. Eventually, the robot has to go live in place of the human son without anyone knowing they’ve been switched. There’s a love story in there, too.”

“Is it good?”

“I’m only halfway through, but I like it so far.”

“Next time you’re watching, I want to watch, too.”

“Am I supposed to wait until I’m in your presence to start the next episode?”

“Or you could call me. I can give you my num—“

“You won’t even know what’s going on.”

“So? I want to watch it with you.”

Jisung stopped dead in the center of the street. Minho did, too.

“You are—“

“What?” he challenged.

“Nothing.”

Jisung kept walking. 

“What? Now I want to know. I’m what, Han Jisung? Just trying to have a little fun?”

“Bold of you to assume I’m any fun to be around anyway.”

“Honestly, I’m having the time of my life so far.”

There was a smile in Minho’s voice, but Jisung didn’t look back to see if it was genuine. 

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

Unsure if he could trust that, Jisung went quiet.

“Here. Get on.”

For a second time that night: “What?”

Minho had jogged to catch up and crouched down in front of Jisung, cutting off where he would have kept walking. 

“Come on. Get on, I’ll carry you.”

“ _ Why? _ “

“So when I ask you to carry me later, you know I’m not fucking with you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense—“

Minho was strong. 

Without Jisung taking a single step himself, Minho reached his arms back, grabbed onto his legs, and heaved him into a piggyback ride, all while standing out of a squat with the entirety of Jisung’s weight on top of him.

“Do you even know where the convenience store is? You were following me,” Jisung asked instead of arguing. He couldn’t beat Minho in a battle of strength anyway.

“You’ll tell me if I’m going the wrong way. Or maybe you want to get lost so you can spend more time with me.”

Minho was only this bold when Jisung couldn’t see his face.

Interesting.

“My mom will think you kidnapped me.”

“I don’t know.” He heaved Jisung higher onto his back; held tighter to his legs. The arms Jisung had locked around Minho’s neck tightened, too. “I think she likes me.”

“Parents probably eat you up.” 

Jisung meant that sincerely. Minho was easily charismatic. Unafraid. “Are you a hit with your girlfriend’s family?”

“I watch a lot of dramas, too, Han Jisung. You’re baiting me into telling you whether I’m single or not.”

He wasn’t doing that, not in any conscious way. It wasn’t hard to assume Minho was in a relationship when he was objectively, horrifically beautiful. 

Jisung retaliated, lest Minho, face turned from him, got too cheeky.

Biting his ear—just barely, just enough for Minho to feel the scraping of his teeth—did shut him up effectively, but maybe not in its intended effect.

Jisung could feel the goosebumps spread across Minho’s neck.

He walked faster, silently, following the directions Jisung whispered close to his ear. 

*

On the way back, in favor of hearing Minho ramble over the nervous silence that got them here, Jisung decided to be the one asking the questions. 

He listened to Minho describe his favorite movies, his most beloved books. For fun, Minho liked to dance, and maybe he was telling the truth when he said he had fun being with Jisung, because Minho danced right then and there, arms smoothly popping on either side of Jisung’s face. He was showing off and teasing him and asking for attention all at once; he seemed happiest with this amount of control, and Jisung didn’t mind giving it to him. 

Brighter than any of the lights on this street was Minho trying to roll a bag of marshmallows across the top of his shoulders, like it was a basketball, to prove, Jisung didn’t even know what, but he massaged Minho’s shoulders anyway, an instant, makeshift coach. 

They finished the rest of their walk passing the bag back and forth as they avoided golf carts filled with teenagers. Minho called out sports commentary so ridiculous Jisung doubted whether he’d ever watched a basketball game in his life. That didn’t matter here, though. His dad was right. They could be anything here. Sports stars with no experience. Friends in the blink of an eye. 

Back at the campsite, their parents were laughing, more bottles of soju sprinkled about; without either of them needing to agree to it out loud, they dropped off the food but didn’t sit back down at the fire.

At each lot was a picnic table, and because Jisung’s family always brought along a fold-out table to prep food and catch the day’s discards, theirs was vacant on the other side of where the tents were set up. 

Jisung led Minho there, pulled his headphones out of his pocket.

There was no way Minho could have followed the episode completely—the show was a melodrama; there were fifty plot points all intersecting at once—but he waited to talk until it was over. 

During, he stayed engrossed, chin resting lightly on Jisung’s shoulder. He hadn’t asked permission and Jisung hadn’t pushed him away. 

“Is the assistant in love with the human or am I imagining things? They seem like more than best friends. He dedicated his whole life to understanding and protecting him.” 

Jisung took out his ear bus and pocketed his phone. 

“I don’t think they’ll address it explicitly, but the implication seems pretty clear to me, yeah.”

“I wish they would just say it,” Minho admitted quietly. He laid back on the top of the picnic table, face tipped up to the stars. Jisung followed him, keeping his eyes straight so Minho could keep talking if he wanted to. “It’d make it easier on all of us if we could just say it.”

“I’m gay,” Jisung told the sky.

Minho flinched, and for a moment, Jisung feared he’d made a dangerous mistake.

The panic in his chest couldn’t radiate outward when Minho’s hand found his. 

They breathed together, for just a moment. 

“Me, too.”

Moving his hand so their fingers interlaced, Jisung squeezed. His hand and his chest, in gratitude rather than worry.

Time passed, slowly. While they laid there, palms pressed together, the sound of their parents faint behind them. 

Minho was the one to break the silence.

“Hang out with me tomorrow?” 

He still didn’t look over at Jisung.

“What do you want to do?”

“Show me this place. Show me how to do it right.”

This felt right.

But Jisung didn’t say that.

*

The following morning, Jisung met Minho at the lake. 

He came with two fishing rods he knew were good quality, reducing the chance that Minho would find a way to hurt himself again.

Instead of going to the pier where they’d first met, he suggested they walk to another spot, at the edge of the lake, where no one would be around. If he’d learned anything about being friends with Lee Minho it was that they were  _ loud _ when they were together. There would be easier access to fish at the tree line, too, since Minho probably wouldn’t be able to cast out very far anyway. 

Minho showed up in his same swimming trunks and plain t-shirt, and he smiled happily as soon as he saw Jisung standing near the edge of the water.

“Good morning,” he greeted.

“Sleep okay?” 

“I get to sleep in a bed in our camper. Did you sleep okay? No way being on the ground is comfortable.”

“I’m good.” 

Why wouldn’t he be? The sky was clear and his breakfast was delicious and Minho was going to learn how to fish.

Theoretically.

The baiting part went fine. Once Minho knew to thread the worm onto the hook fully, he could do it with ease. He wasn’t squeamish handling the bait in the process, and Jisung listened to him talk about how much he liked watching reptile videos where insects and worms were fed to various lizards and snakes as he practiced. 

As Jisung suspected, it was the casting part that caused him the most trouble. He had to let go of the button on the reel at just the right angle in the rod’s movement above his head for the line to cast out properly; for someone who was so aware of his body, Minho struggled to coordinate the motion. 

Demonstrating on his own rod and then waiting for Minho to try wasn’t translating, so Jisung resulted to guiding Minho’s motions with his hand resting lightly on top of where Minho held the rod, his other arm circled around his waist, keeping him steady. 

“You don’t have to pull back so strongly like you’re throwing something across a field,” he explained. “Keep your motions controlled, and focus on letting go of the button when you flick your wrist.”

Minho nodded, did as Jisung said, and when the line landed in the water rather than tangled at the end of the rod, he leaned his head against Jisung’s, who still held him close—a subdued celebration, but Jisung could feel his smile. For the first time, he was seeing Minho  _ blissed _ .

“I’m really good at this,” Minho gloated.

That snapped them both out of it.

Rolling his eyes, Jisung instructed him to be patient if his bobber started to move. 

Minho took direction a little too well; when a fish did finally bite, he watched his bobber sink completely under the water without moving a muscle.

“Snap it!” 

Jisung reached around to reel in the line while Minho used both of his hands to sharply pull the rod back toward them. 

Together, they managed to get the fish in.

It was no longer than the palm of his hand, but Minho was proud of himself. 

“Jisung, I think I’m a natural.”

“Okay, expert, get that off of your hook.”

Unwilling to be wrong, he went to reach for the flapping fish so quickly that Jisung barely had time to tell him he should wear a glove.

“Their fins can cut you, be careful.”

Wearing one Jisung pulled out of his dad’s tackle box, Minho slowly threaded the hook back out from the fish’s mouth. He was careful, even soothing the fish with “it’s okay, it’s okay” as he worked.

A couple of days ago, this is where Jisung would have been caught staring. Minho would have winked at him or something, teased him for looking so endeared.

But the campground seemed to be sparing him now. Once he’d decided that here he could make a friend, that he wouldn’t overthink, that anything could happen, even his hands on Minho’s waist, his bad luck evaporated. Or rather, Jisung was acknowledging the good with the bad. Held onto it more tightly, like there were only two days left, and he didn’t want to let this feeling go just yet.

“Be smarter next time,” Minho encouraged as he gently lowered his catch back into the water. He turned back to Jisung. “Okay, what’s next?”

“That’s all the fishing you wanted to do?”

“I’m more interested in being with you than staring at the water.”

“You’re with me right now.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What do you mean, hyung?”

“We’re going to retrace our steps. Let’s go swimming.”

That probably wasn’t what he meant, but Jisung let Minho lead him anyway. 

*

Technically, enjoying the pool properly would have meant teaching Minho how to swim.

As soon as they stepped into the water, though, Minho hopped onto Jisung’s back and demanded that he give him a tour of the deep end.

And that’s how they stayed for most of the afternoon. Even when Minho’s feet could have comfortably touched the pool’s floor once more, he clung to Jisung’s back, resting his cheek on his shoulder blade, seemingly content to just feel Jisung’s skin against his. If there was a public place where he could, where they both could, it was here. 

“Let’s play a game,” Jisung suggested when his neck started to ache. He reached up to poke Minho’s forehead when he didn’t immediately respond.

“What kind of game?” 

“It’s called categories.” Jisung pried Minho off of him so he could explain properly. “One person gives a category, and the other person tries to guess what the leader’s favorite thing is in that category. Usually, you race to the other side of the pool when you get it right, but since you can’t swim…let’s just say if you get it wrong, you get splashed, and we’ll just take turns.”

“Okay, I get to go first,” Minho proclaimed, more energized than before. “Category is…food.”

Jisung swallowed a gallon of water before getting it right. He always played this game with school friends he knew well, in the pool in his best friend’s backyard. Here, it seemed like a convoluted and  _ wet _ way to get to know someone.

He had regrets, but once Minho set his mind to something, he didn’t seem to like to back down, and there was no way he could suggest they do something else now without Minho never shutting up about it.

“Okay,” Jisung breathed out hard. “I’ll start out EASY. Favorite color.”

Putting his hands up to shield his face from the oncoming water, Minho tried his first guess: “Red.”

Jisung stood dumbfounded.

The shit-eating grin on Minho’s face was annoying. If he could swim, Jisung would have jumped on him, dunked his head under the water. 

“How did you know that?”

“Your phone case is red and so is your wallpaper. My turn!”

Not even the more straightforward categories—like school subject or kpop group—were kind to Jisung; meanwhile, Minho continued to read Jisung pretty well given how little they actually knew about each other. In between taunting and around teasing, Lee Minho paid attention.

The incessant splashing must have deterred others in the pool from crowding them. Largely alone in their corner of the shallow end, Jisung screamed every few seconds, and Minho sometimes went easy on him, throwing his own body over instead of a palmful of water. Contact lingered with their laughter. 

“Okay, I’ve got one,” Jisung decided. “Favorite type of skinship.”

“Hmmmmm. Cuddling.”

A large sheet of water rained down over Minho’s head. He took a moment to wipe his eyes and push his bangs back from his face.

“Holding hands.”

Jisung acted as if he was going to splash him again, but he jumped forward to grab Minho’s hand instead. Despite being willing and ready to tease Jisung on his own turns, the connecting of their hands together left Minho’s face a darker shade of red than the start of his sunburn. 

“Nope,” Jisung confirmed, stepping back, making space. “I like it, but it’s not my favorite.”

“Kissing?”

In answer, he pretended to jump forward again, just to see the terror on Minho’s face. 

Minho feebly tried to scold him: “Yah.”

“You win, you win. That round and overall. Come on, we should get going, you’re getting some sun.”

“I probably didn’t put on enough sunscreen,” Minho agreed.

Hands pruny, eyes tired, tops of noses pink, they dried off the best they could and walked back the path in which they came, shoulders bumping along the way. 

*

Minho let slip that his family was eating their meals at the clubhouse restaurant each day, so their plans for the evening were easy to set. No way Jisung was letting Minho leave this vacation without a campfire-cooked meal. 

They helped Jisung’s parents prepare the food: his dad taught Minho how to start a fire; his mom explained how to control it so there were hot and warm parts of the grill. 

Jisung could see all of the moments they’d missed with him over the past five years spilling over onto Minho. He absorbed them easily, busying about the campsite with this task and that. 

It was impossible not to feel warm, watching them all together, but there was shame, too, eating at the edges of him. If Jisung hadn’t become quite so anxious as he grew up, maybe his parents would still be that happy to be on vacation with him. 

Minho didn’t let him think about that for too long.

“Here, taste.” 

He held out a spoonful of sauce he’d been helping Jisung’s mom make. 

“Is it good?” he asked as soon as it hit Jisung’s lips.

“Mmhmmm. Are you a natural at this too?”

“I’m good at everything, Han Jisung.”

The look Minho gave him was unmistakably loaded.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Confidence left as quickly as it came;  _ shy _ danced across his face. 

Jisung took one more lick of the spoon, eyebrow raised, before getting up to set the table with plates and napkins: that thought gone, too. 

When neither of them were paying attention—perhaps while they watched another episode of ‘Are You Human Too?’ waiting for the fire to burn hot enough to cook on—Minho’s parents were invited over for dinner. They arrived just in time, again with soju and this time with a change of clothes for Minho, who was still wearing his swimming trunks. 

Scarfing down the food wasn’t difficult; laughing like they’d all known each other for years wasn’t forced; asking Minho at the end of the night if he wanted to stay over was easier than it should have been.

“You wanted me to show you how to do all of this for real. You have to sleep in a tent tonight, or else the whole experience is incomplete,” Jisung told him while they washed off dishes at a faucet near the bath house. 

Minho nodded at his hands working the grease off of a pot. 

It was another late evening sitting around the fire following the collective effort to clean up the aftermath of dinner. Time passed more quickly this time: Jisung wasn’t so fixated on how much he was contributing to the conversation or analyzing how likely the Lee family was to like him. He still let everyone else do most of the talking, but he told a couple stories of his own, and while everyone else chatted away, Minho kept him occupied by knocking his shoe against Jisung’s in front of their adjacent chairs. 

Genuinely exhausted from such a full day, Jisung suggested he and Minho go lay down when midnight approached. 

After unzipping his sleeping bag and laying it out flat, Jisung waited on his knees by the tent door to allow Minho to get comfortable first. Once they’d both settled with a spare blanket from the truck to keep them warm, Jisung turned off the small lamp he kept by his head, just in case he needed to get up in the middle of the night. 

In such darkness, and with the tents far enough away from the fire that only a murmur of conversation made its way over to them, he became hyper aware of the sound of his own breathing. 

Talking was a better solution than holding his breath. 

“Hyung, did you have fun today?” he whispered.

Jisung felt Minho’s fingers find his. 

“So much fun.”

He scooted so his leg touched Minho’s. 

“How would you have spent the week if you hadn’t met me?”

“Reading, probably. Hanging out with my dad.”

“Regret it?” 

“You’re baiting me again, Han Jisung.”

“Into what?”

“You know what.”

“Tell me.”

An inhale.

“Hyung, show me.”

The touch of Minho’s hand to Jisung’s cheek was light, hesitant. With eyes now adjusted to the night, he could see Minho looking at him, directly, adoringly. 

“I like you,” Minho whispered quieter than all of his other words.

“Me, too.”

Jisung brought Minho close to him as if he were delicate, as if at any moment he’d disappear, as if this moment would turn to smoke. 

Minho’s hands trembled.

Minho tasted like burnt sugar.

Minho, Minho, Minho. 

Close to one hundred nights had Jisung slept on this ground, but tonight he held a beautiful boy against his chest, kissed him until he could barely breathe, let his hands roam farther than he knew he should. 

Minho’s skin was warm, from the fire, maybe, or maybe just from this. Desire boiling over. A lifetime of want. And Jisung felt it all, all of him.

One gasp as Minho rolled his hips up, tongue sliding across Jisung’s lips, and they both pulled away.

A choice appeared between them. 

Minho decided first.

“Can I touch you?”

They touched together; they kissed to stay quiet. 

Jisung hoped that his memory wouldn’t fail him. He wanted to taste Minho’s mouth a year from now. He hoped his hand would remember the weight of him no matter what else he’d ever touch. The sound Minho made when he came would be an echoing reminder, always, that this night was theirs. 

*

“One full day left. What do you want to do?”

The morning came quickly, even if Jisung woke up more often than usual throughout the night. He wasn’t used to sleeping with someone else in any circumstance, but definitely not in a small, one-person tent. He’d find himself half-awake and surprised by the feeling of Minho next to him. The night wasn’t cool enough for them to have clung to each other as tightly as they had. That didn’t stop them. 

He’d heard the unzipping of his parent’s tent at least half an hour ago. Per an established routine, Jisung should have gotten up with them and drank a cup of tea while they listened to birds chirping around the trees. 

Minho’s leg was still draped over him, though, and he would have stayed laying here like this for the next six months if Minho just asked him.

“Do we have to do anything?” he asked sleepily. “Shouldn’t vacations have a rest day?”

Jisung patted his hair where Minho’s head rested on his chest.

“We could start ‘Are You Human, Too?’ over from the beginning so you could follow everything and marathon the entire thing in one day.”

Popping up from where he laid, Minho’s smile stretched the farthest Jisung had seen it: what contrast to the satiated grin he gave after he came the night before. Jisung liked both of them. All of him, maybe.

Well, not everything.

“Ow! Why are you pinching me?!”

“Are you sure you’re real? Mr. Perfect. You’re not allowed to have a face like that  _ and _ a dick like that—“

“Oh my god, shut UP, my parents are outside—“

“—while also liking to stay in and watch tv all day, you can’t be a perfect person who also likes me, this is too good to be true.”

“You’re supposed to pinch  _ yourself _ to make sure something is real,” Jisung complained. He tried rubbing the sting away from his arm. 

Minho gave an airy laugh. “Oh yeah.”

They decided to get up, shower, and walk over to Minho’s campsite to watch the drama in the comfort of the camper. Minho paid his dues; they both deserved a bed.

It took three times as long to finish an episode with Minho beside him. They kissed more than they watched. If not for Minho’s mom coming in and out of the camper as she cleaned up for the next morning’s early departure, Jisung had zero doubt that he would have tasted Minho for the firs time, as long as he would have let him.

“Do your parents know?” Minho asked after they broke apart quickly, like the teenagers they just barely weren’t anymore, when the door opened and closed once more. 

Jisung shook his head. “I assume they suspect, honestly, but I’ve never told them.”

“Do you think you will?”

“I want to,” he admitted. “I can’t actively picture myself coming out to them in my head right now. I told myself that once I’m okay imagining it, I’ll do it.”

Going quiet, Minho seemed to think about that. He lifted up from where his head rested on Jisung’s shoulder to look at him.

“What can you imagine right now?”

“Now you’re the one baiting me, Lee Minho.”

He plopped his head back down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You do,” Jisung teased. He put his phone away—the drama episode long over—and scooted down on the bed so they were laying side-by-side. 

“How far away do you live from Seoul?” Minho finally asked, arms swatting, when Jisung started to kiss all around his face to pry the question out of him. 

“Can’t believe you’ve touched my dick, but you don’t know where I live.”

“YAH! Now it’s my parents outside!”

Jisung laughed so hard he almost fell off of the small twin mattress. Minho, despite his tone, hooked his leg over his waist so Jisung wouldn’t actually hurt himself. 

“I go to school in the city,” he answered once he calmed down. “We could hook up with my  _ roommates _ listening in next time.”

“I want to take you on a date, Han Jisung.” 

Minho sounded exasperated, like Jisung was missing the point. 

“Oh, really?” 

“Go out with me.”

“But what if you don’t like me in the real world?” Jisung asked out loud, when the thought should have stayed in his head.

Minho’s eyebrows scrunched together. 

“What about this week hasn’t been real? I pinched you earlier, remember?”

He said it like it was that simple.

Maybe it could be.

If Jisung didn’t kiss Minho then and there, he would have cried, so he did and he didn’t, and they watched only half of the drama before midnight came because hands kept roaming across sun kissed skin. Gratitude, from both of them, conveyed in simpler ways than out loud. 

They slept in the camper that last night, hugging in a small bed separated from the living area by a curtain. 

Insulated, but real. Jisung woke up hoping that both could be true. 

*

**Lee Minho:**

this is the first time i’m seeing you in clothes that aren’t swimming trunks

you’re kind of hot 

**Han Jisung:**

why are you texting me when we’re sitting right across from each other

**Lee Minho:**

i’m overwhelmed

you’re here

and hot

and we’re on a DATE

and i get to take you home tonight

and i live ALONE

**Han Jisung:**

eat

**Lee Minho:**

that’s what i’m saying

i want to

**Han Jisung:**

EAT YOUR FOOD LEE MINHO

**Lee Minho:**

>.<

for you, anything 

***

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhhh, i hope that was as much-needed of a soft, outdoorsy fic for you as it was for me
> 
> i would love it if you left your thoughts in the comment section~~let me know what you think~~
> 
> minsung with me?  
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/leemiknow) | [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/staykid)


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